


The Nesting Habits of Angelus Principalum

by obaewankenope (rexthranduil)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 3d renderings of the moon are awesome btw, Angst, Emotions, Fluff, M/M, Nest!fic, Protective!Aziraphale, i want like seven of them, ineffable husbands, nesting fic, prompt!fic, this is 5k of like angst and fluff and just Emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-09 18:04:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19481170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexthranduil/pseuds/obaewankenope
Summary: “Angel,” Crowley draws out, dragging the word along behind him as he somehow manages to emulate a snakes slithering while in human form along the north corridor—between the shelves with books on space and science-fiction—looking at their contents suspiciously. “Is that—it—is that a 3D model of themoon?How—where did you even getthat?”Aziraphale bounces a little on the balls of his feet. “Idoknow how to use the internet dear,” he says, somewhat proudly. “I even have accounts on a handful of websitesnotdedicated to books.”





	The Nesting Habits of Angelus Principalum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lulu28816](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lulu28816/gifts).



> A fic requested by the lovely [lulu28816](https://lulu28816.tumblr.com) on tumblr! They requested nesting fic with protective!Aziraphale and no Murder Emotions. I managed two of those things ;)

Humanity has knowledge of angels only in the most basic sense. They know names, designations, and who created them. They do not know much more than that. It is for this reason—and this reason alone—that Aziraphale has continued to not smite any humans even when they _touch his books._ His very precious books that matter to him in ways he cannot hope to begin to explain and are absolutely paramount to his future. Or, the future he would _like_ , at any rate.

When he first begins this endeavour—back in 1800 with an empty shop floor and shelves just waiting to be filled—he doesn't realise the driving force behind it all. How could he? It's not like it is a standardised process with clearly defined stages. Every angel differs in their approach. And no angel ever talks about it. _Ever_.

It has taken him far longer than he is comfortable with admitting before it dawns on him, one morning in 1941 just what it is that he's doing. Well, no, that's not _strictly true_. On an abstract level—separate from his daily actions and the like—Aziraphale has known all along what he's doing with the bookshop. It's more that he just didn't want to admit it to himself and see the bookshop—and everything associated with it—in a different light. The days that follow the church bombing are — to put it finely — some of the most stressful in Aziraphale's life. And he's lived a _long_ life.

Going through his books, noticing the titles, genres, authors, where they were placed, and what time he procured them—the pattern of it all—it's enough to drive anyone to distraction. For Aziraphale however, it simply drives home an incontestable point, one he accepts with the kind of soft reluctance someone who wants something but doesn't wish to admit they want it expresses.

Aziraphale is familiar with this feeling—has known it since the day a demon wandered up the wall and struck-up conversation with him about humanity—but he still rebels a little against it. Against what it means.

Aziraphale is an _angel_.

An angel does _not_ nest with books and soft blankets and sofas and an oculus perfectly placed to let in sunlight at all times during the day. 

An angel _especially_ does not nest in such a manner for a _demon,_ even one as unique as Crowley.

But Crowley… Crowley is certainly _worth_ nesting for, Aziraphale feels. He was an angel once—though this is a sore topic of discussion for the demon and thus is avoided by Aziraphale even though he absolutely bursts with questions of Who He Was Before—and, as such, would understand the purpose of Aziraphale's behaviour without the confusion of a human. Crowley is adaptable and a constant presence in Aziraphale's life, even when they argue about something or end up in a bit of a snit with one another. Heaven knows—well, they don't, but it's the phrase that counts—Crowley has saved Aziraphale's life several times over; from France to Istanbul (a nasty affair neither of them discuss) and—well— _London._ It makes Crowley—for all his demonic ways—a very attractive individual, saving Aziraphale all the time like that.

Instinct. Oh how Aziraphale wishes to hate instinct. But instinct had driven him to offer a wing for Crowley up there on the Wall, on one of the very first Days, and instinct had made his chest feel warm with joy at the acceptance by the strange demon who did not conform to expectations. 

Love is an angels greatest strength but it is also their greatest weakness.

Show an angel love and they will fight a war for you.

Really, that's precisely what Aziraphale almost ends up doing that day when the world _didn't_ end.

Humanity showed Aziraphale a lot of things that heaven didn't. It showed him that desire isn't as sinful or wrong as his fellow angels always told him. It revealed to him secrets of sameness and difference and how excuses to be nasty are always there—that it doesn't matter if you're the kindest person alive, someone will hate you for it and you can't do anything about that except keep choosing to be kind. Humanity gave Aziraphale a million-and-one experiences that have helped him to grow and expand beyond what heaven allows him to be.

Humanity has given Aziraphale courage like he has never felt before.

Courage that he uses to embrace his feelings—even if he won't admit them to Crowley, not yet, not yet—and work slowly toward making the bookshop Perfect. He's sure that, in Crowley's mind, Aziraphale is a mangled mess of contradictory emotions and actions. Crowley's mind is right. But Aziraphale cannot—will not—do anything—admit anything—until the bookshop is Just Right and Fit For Purpose.

You see, the thing about angels is this: when they choose to do something, they have to do it Right. An angel cannot half-arse a job, put in a couple hours hard graft and call it a day with half the fence still unpainted, a window not installed, the door hanging by a hinge—no, an angel has to do up the whole house in a Specific and Perfect Way and won’t stop until it’s Right.

This, of course, is the problem. Or one of them. Because Crowley is there and he’s waiting and he wants and Aziraphale knows he wants because Aziraphale can sense it. But the bookshop isn’t Complete and so it has to wait. Crowley has to wait.

The books by the doors need to be perfectly arranged by order of first publication, the ones on the east corridor need to additions to them to fill in the gaps between philosophy and psychology—whatever those gaps might be, Aziraphale isn’t quite sure—and the west corridor? Oh that one is an absolute _disaster_.

No, no, Aziraphale must keep going and keep working until it’s Perfect and then—only then—can he present it all to Crowley and make the admission.

Although he cannot make the admission until the bookshop is complete, Aziraphale is more than happy to invite Crowley around, to have him drop in unannounced, and to spend time with the demon—his hereditary enemy. It is a mark of a good mate—in Aziraphale’s eyes—that what they create is visited often and approved of, even if it is far from complete. It is also a good mark to spend time outside the nest, to visit places and people and do things together or for each other—it shows a willingness, a capacity and desire, to care and do things for the pleasure of making their mate happy.

When Crowley gives him those soft, slight smiles—no more than an upturn of his thin lips most of the time—those are the times when Aziraphale feels like it may all just turn out All Right.

Hopefully.

Crowley has always asked questions, always been curious, this Aziraphale knows. It’s partly why he has so many books in his bookshop about every which thing he can find books about. From biblical lore to scientific texts written in a hundred different languages, to poetry and scripts and plays that haven’t been voiced for a thousand human years, all of it is for Crowley’s benefit. Aziraphale loves his bookshop because he has poured so much of himself into it. He loves it for what it represents. He loves it for the books themselves and for the meaning of them when he thinks of Crowley, nestled on the sofa, blankets wrapped around his long, lithe frame, serpentine eyes bright with joy, a book about space in Aziraphale’s hands as he reads it to the demon.

Yes, Aziraphale loves his books. He loves them very much.

He just so happens to love Crowley a whole lot more.

When Armageddon had been announced, when Crowley had called him up and told him that it was All Coming To An End, Aziraphale had looked about his bookshop for hours after, fingers tracing the spines of books like Voltaire and he had mourned the loss of them all. He mourned the loss of two hundred years’ worth of nesting and knowledge-building and love and effort and painstaking care. Crowley’s efforts to convince him to work with the demon to stall Armageddon appealed to him more than he wanted to admit—not so soon after hearing that he would lose this place and everything it meant to him and the potential of it all—but the hope, the infectious hopefulness of Crowley’s words, expression, the possibility of it ending out Okay had stirred Aziraphale to agreement.

Agreement that, standing in his bookshop once again—days after the Apocalypse-that-didn’t-quite-happen—Aziraphale finds himself eternally thankful for saying ‘yes’ to.

Because now he has _time_. He has time to keep working, to improve, to make it Better. He has time to work in what he now knows Crowley appreciates—green things, plants, life and potential, art and visual memories—between the shelves of knowledge; Aziraphale’s own offering of understanding, of answers, to the one who only thought to Ask Questions.

“Nice picture, angel,” Crowley says, leaning against the pillar nearest to Aziraphale’s desk. He hadn’t announced himself in any way until uttering those words so it’s no wonder that Aziraphale startles violently enough to knock his cup of hot coca off the desk. “Not so nice mess.”

Aziraphale lets out a sigh. “Honestly Crowley, I do wish you wouldn’t scare me like that, it really is quite rude, my dear,” he says in lieu of a ‘hello’ and snaps his fingers, miracling the cup back into one piece rather than a few hundred ceramic shards and the hot coca back inside the cup again and at a lovely warm temperature for imbibing.

“No fun otherwise, angel,” the demon comments, pushing off the pillar and sauntering over to Aziraphale who automatically—instinctively—looks the demon up and down. “Anyway, nice art—where’d you get it?” Crowley points with a thumb over his shoulder to the wall directly opposite Aziraphale’s desk; one of the few walls in the bookshop that doesn’t have shelves on it. “Been looking to get a[ copy of that meself](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1a/Eug%C3%A8ne_Ferdinand_Victor_Delacroix_061.jpg/800px-Eug%C3%A8ne_Ferdinand_Victor_Delacroix_061.jpg) but it looks better here than in my flat if I’m honest.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale’s chin tilts up a little even as a blush spreads across his cheeks, dusting his pale face with a light shade of red. He feels like his wings ought to be on show, fanned out and preening at the approval, the attention, from Crowley. “Thank you. I thought—well—I thought the place could do with—” he waves a hand in a sort of awkward gesture “—a bit of _sprucing up,_ as they say.”

“Delacroix always was a bit of a romantic but he captured the scene pretty well,” Crowley comments, stepping up close to the print that hangs almost the entire height and width of the wall. His nose is close enough to it that his breath fogs up the glass for brief seconds. “Like his one he did of Michael more though; even if it isn’t really her. Trust humans to always get the names of angels wrong, eh?”

Aziraphale stares at Crowley, standing so very close to the print copy of mural he spent days looking for, and he doesn’t really process what the demon is saying until Crowley turns his head and looks at him.

“Ah—uh—no—yes, yes, sorry—yes,” he stammers, clearing his throat and blinking rather rapidly. There’s the echoing drumming of his heart—the human heart in his human form that is far too small to contain him and yet, somehow, it does—and Aziraphale feels like it may burst from the tempo it’s reaching as he continues to stare at Crowley. There’s sunlight filtering down from the oculus above at just the right angle to catch in Crowley’s short red hair, igniting the strands into a fiery shade that seems so well-suited to the passionate being staring right back at Aziraphale. His skin is pale like Aziraphale’s own—something neither of them had any choice in deciding when they’d been assigned these bodies—but there’s a sun-kissed quality to it across the bridge of the nose and just under the eyes across the cheeks. Aziraphale feels like he could very well lose himself in the vision Crowley makes in his all-black ensemble, stood beneath a column of golden sunlight pouring down upon him, highlighting every aspect of the demon who is more than _just_ a demon.

“Aziraphale—earth to Aziraphale,” Crowley says suddenly and Aziraphale blinks. “You still in there?” Crowley smirks and Aziraphale stares some more. “Honestly, angel, you okay? Not got any more books of prophecy you’re thinking about?”

“No,” Aziraphale breathes, “no more books of prophecy, no.” He shakes his head a little, blinking a bit more viciously, and forces himself to stop focusing on all those details Crowley is absolute rife with. He needs to focus on his _reactions_ not- not _him_. “Sorry, head’s a bit in the clouds.”

“Hmmm.” Crowley does his own bit of staring now and Aziraphale realises that the demon has pushed his glasses up to sit atop his head, revealing those large, overly-expressive serpentine eyes that Aziraphale does so enjoy looking at. “You’ve been like that a lot these past few weeks, ever—ever since—well—you know.”

“Armageddon?”

“Yeah.”

Aziraphale sighs. “I suppose I have, haven’t I?” He stands from the desk and moves toward the mural print, gaze somewhat distant, fingers fidgeting worriedly at his vest. “I suppose I’ve just—been thinking, that’s all. About a lot of things.”

“Want to talk about it?” Crowley’s voice is so unusually soft—gentle—that Aziraphale can’t help but think back on the last time he heard that same tone, on a bench in a quiet, sleepy, English town waiting for a bus to London. It feels like a lifetime ago. It was barely a week ago.

Aziraphale shakes his head. “No, no, not really,” he says, voice quiet and he looks at the mural, raises a hand and traces the outline of the tree, fingertips leaving a slight smudge on the glass. “I’m afraid I’m not sure how I can talk about it right now.”

Crowley is silent. Too silent. Silence from Crowley always mean thinking. Of course, Aziraphale has always talked for both of them, pouring out word after word into the lull that always falls after Crowley has spoken. The demon speaks seldom unless he wants something, choosing instead to say much with his actions rather than his words—words for Crowley, Aziraphale has come to understand, are a weapon. Crowley is an expert with words but even an expert fumbles every now and then, striking at the wrong moment in the wrong way and losing as a result. Aziraphale isn’t quite sure what his weapon is; he uses words well enough, is good at tricking and cajoling, convincing and invoking favour or catastrophe. Perhaps Aziraphale’s weapon isn’t words, or actions, perhaps his weapon… perhaps it’s _feelings_.

The next time Crowley visits, Aziraphale has carried out a lot of Little Changes that culminate in a Subtle Difference which is noticeable but not Too Noticeable. They’re the kind of noticeable that happens when you’re away from home for a week or two, your family are looking after the place, and you come back to something different but you can’t immediately put your finger on what—it usually turns out to be a sofa positioned differently, a picture frame moved from its usual position, or, more interestingly, a strip of wallpaper that looks newer than the rest because someone tripped and threw coffee all over the original strip. Either way, there’s a difference and it niggles at you until you’ve identified it.

Which is why, in true Crowley fashion, the demon stalks around the bookshop, eyes taking in every little detail, comparing it all as Aziraphale tries to subtly watch. He’s not very subtle about it but he tries at least.

“Angel,” Crowley draws out, dragging the word along behind him as he somehow manages to emulate a snakes slithering while in human form along the north corridor—between the shelves with books on space and science-fiction—looking at their contents suspiciously. “Is that—it—is that a[ 3D model of the _moon_](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/460973862/moon-globe-3d-printed-space-gift-nasa?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=space+globe&ref=sc_gallery-1-2&plkey=d4f7fa68fcbe2671e76d3287a4e40d25d3b5e4d1%3A460973862) _?_ How—where did you even _get that?”_

Aziraphale bounces a little on the balls of his feet. “I _do_ know how to use the internet dear,” he says, somewhat proudly. “I even have accounts on a handful of websites _not_ dedicated to books.”

Apparently this is a shocking revelation for Crowley who continues to stare open-mouthed at Aziraphale for far longer than is typical for the demon. Aziraphale wonders if maybe… he might have… _surprised_ Crowley with this.

“Oh,” Crowley—finally—says. “Right—yeah—no yeah—that- that makes- makes sense,” he continues and Aziraphale is tempted to ask what Crowley thinks makes sense here but he refrains. He’s surprised his demon enough already, best not to give him too many shocks in one go.

It would be _terribly_ rude of him.

“Drink?” Aziraphale asks and Crowley all but seizes on the opportunity to leave this discussion topic behind and imbibe alcohol instead. If there is one thing both of them enjoy equally, it is good wine.

Aziraphale had attempted drinking beer and stout but the beverage had been—compared to the sweet wines of Italian and French vineyards—bitter and unappealing to his sensitive palette. The angel much prefers sweeter and drier drinks.

Crowley will drink anything if it’s alcoholic enough to make him see the floor move “like a snake” as he describes. Absinthe is something neither of them consume in each other’s company after some rather… choice acts in the 19th and 20th centuries with individuals of some renown. Aziraphale isn’t the type to ‘kiss-and-tell’ but Crowley guesses everything just from visiting the bookshop after the Green Fairy Events and notes the collection of Oscar Wilde’s works in pride of place over his desk. Aziraphale hides them on a shelf a little less obvious after Crowley’s rather pointed comment on “showing off”.

He had been but still, Aziraphale never wants to upset Crowley, especially not after he realises the depth of his feelings in 1941.

A painting—[another print](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Paradise_Lost_1.jpg)—on a newly created space of wall captures Crowley’s attention in a way Aziraphale doesn’t quite expect. He watches the demon almost curl into himself before being seemingly drawn against his will closer. Something about the print is mesmerising for Crowley and Aziraphale follows him instinctively. There’s a sense of grief in Crowley’s body and it draws Aziraphale to him, makes him want to unfurl his wings and curl them around Crowley to protect him from whatever it is that grieves him so.

“This… I remember this…”

“Gustave Doré’s etching for Milton’s _Paradise Lost_ ,” Aziraphale says, soft and watchful. Crowley seems to barely hear him. “Over ten thousand verses detailing—well—everything we lived through really. Milton always said he wanted to tell the story in a way that justified Her actions, Her choices. I’m not sure if he succeeded really. It’s quite accurate though—not completely, of course, since he wasn’t there for it all. But quite close for a human.” He’s rambling, babbling information and commentary because Crowley is still staring at the print and it’s unnerving and Aziraphale can feel something changing, something happening and he’s not sure he Likes It.”

“Which way shall I fly, infinite wrath and infinite despair?” Crowley whispers, head tipping forward to press lightly on the glass of the frame. “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.”

Aziraphale _yearns_ to let his wings loose, to protect Crowley from this pain he’s inadvertently caused. But he doesn’t. Instead he listens as Crowley continues to recite lines from memory, pain dripping from every vowel and consonant.”

“And in the lowest deep a lower deep. Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,” Crowley turns, still leaning against the print that seems to rip such emotion from him, to look at Aziraphale standing behind him. The demon stares at him with something in his eyes that makes the grief and pain shift, drags something gentler and warmer and far more encompassing toward the forefront of what Aziraphale can feel.

“To which the hell I suffer—” Crowley tilts his head back, eyes open and vulnerable and perhaps it’s something instinctive for him too because Aziraphale has never expected to see him do _this_ “—seems a heaven.”

Instinct for angels—and demons it seems—dictate a number of specific actions. One always cares for one’s wings. One does not turn one’s back on one who may threaten those wings—being simultaneous the most vulnerable and also very dangerous part of a celestial being. Courting behaviours vary for demons and angels—some are more prone to aggressive acts, others are more subtle. It is an aspect of their existence that She put in animals on the Earth when She created it. Aziraphale sometimes forgets that Crowley is as much as snake as he is—was—angelic. There is a difference in behaviour from the beginning.

For snakes, there is little interest in nesting—only one snake nests and it is only for the safety of its eggs that it does so. Crowley is—for all that he is much more—a snake, or that is the form he chose and thus he has aspects of snake behaviour bleeding into his celestial nature. Aziraphale realises this suddenly, while staring with rather wide eyes, at the demon leaning against the print of the Fallen Angel, and the sight is jarring. The halo of light, the beams of it from heaven, the angelic figure casting out the Fallen and there is Crowley, standing—leaning—directly in the centre of those cast out.

But Crowley is celestial still and it is the celestial part that has been drawn to Aziraphale’s bookshop year after year, always coming back to the nest Aziraphale has steadily built from the ground up. Perhaps the demon knows what it means, what the bookshop really is—an admission, an offering, a plea—or perhaps he doesn’t. But the way Crowley stands now, gaze affixed to Aziraphale’s face… there’s a challenge there, a hopeful challenge that longs to be met at last.

And Aziraphale cannot bear the thought of rejecting it any longer. There is no heaven or hell stopping them now. Everything has changed even if they have largely stayed the same. But now is a time for decisions and Aziraphale decides his in equal kind to Crowley’s metaphor-heavy offer.

“A mind not to be changed by place or time,” Aziraphale recites from memory, voice a little wavy but still very firm nonetheless. He slowly closes the distance between them as he continues to recite. “The mind is its own place, and in itself.” Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.”

Crowley cracks a smile. “Sounds like us,” he says and the smile is soft and Aziraphale smiles softly in turn. “I’ve tried to go slow for you but I didn’t realise—well—” Crowley looks around at the bookshop “I do now but I didn’t—not then.”

Aziraphale’s smile grows even softer, causes wrinkles around his eyes. “How could you” he asks, “when I didn’t realise myself?” the question is mostly rhetorical but Aziraphale does wonder. He wonders if maybe Crowley had some idea of what the angel was doing and decided not to comment on it.

“I didn’t think you had anyone worth nesting for,” Crowley says, simply, like it’s an obvious thing and honestly—it really isn’t.

It isn’t.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale breathes and he hurts, he aches at the admission from Crowley, of how little value the demon places upon himself as something of worth. “My dear, how could I nest for _anyone_ if not for you?”

Crowley blinks. There is shock in those serpentine eyes of his and Aziraphale seizes the opportunity—being braver than he has been in a long, long time; not since he chose to listen to a demon and not flee from him—to step close to Crowley, bodies just shy of touching.

“I have books here that cover every branch of knowledge humanity has managed to think up, explore, exhaust, and reinvent,” Aziraphale says, eyes focused on Crowley’s face as the demon stares at him wide-eyed and _open_. “They don’t all have answers in them but they do help with understanding it all. Maybe not spectacularly well—they are written by humans after all—but it is something I know _you_ crave; to understand. So I—I think I bought this bookshop and filled it with books about everything so you could do just that.”

“But it wasn’t quite right—I didn’t know how, but I just knew it wasn’t—and then you asked me in—back when I gave you that damned holy water—” Aziraphale runs a hand through his hair, still frustrated at that fiasco decades later “—and I was so afraid that it wasn’t enough and I’d just given you something you could kill yourself with and I thought “it needs more” and I was afraid—always so afraid of what heaven would do. Not to me, but you. I could—could not bear it to lose you because of my inability to… no, I couldn’t risk it. Not yet—not ever really but I didn’t care about that then.”

“Aziraphale—” Crowley begins to say and his voice is weak, like it’s coming from a throat that hasn’t seen water in days, but Aziraphale shushes him.

“No, no, let me finish, please.” The angel swallows thickly, squaring his jaw a little as he works up the courage to keep going. “This is—ah—exceptionally difficult for me to say so please, let me get it out now while I still have the courage to do so.”

“Okay, okay,” Crowley says and he stares at Aziraphale. He just stares. “Okay Aziraphale.”

“It took the end of the world to kick me into action. Six thousand years and all I did was dawdle along and hide from it all—and then in six days I faced the reality, the truth, and didn’t want to run away. Not—well—I was still so, so afraid of heaven. I think I still am, really, but I—after the bandstand—what I said… I was so wrapped up in my fears I didn’t think about why you wanted us to run away together.” Aziraphale pauses. “I don’t think I wanted to,” he corrects after a moment, “because I think I was afraid I’d say yes and then where would we have been? But no—it was wrong of me to be so… final about it all.”

“No angel, just—no,” Crowley says and he pushes away from the print, his body pressing against Aziraphale’s as he brings his hands up and rests them on the angel’s shoulders. “Aziraphale no. I shouldn’t have tried to make you run away with me, not when you were so determined to stop Armageddon. I—I let myself—you weren’t the only one who was afraid,” he admits quietly, “I wanted to run away and I wanted you with me because I didn’t want—I didn’t want to lose you.”

“You—you thought you had,” Aziraphale says and Crowley’s hands tighten on his shoulders. “With the fire—the one you said burned—well—all of this—” he sort of half-gestured at the bookshop around them but his attention was focused on Crowley’s face which seemed to sort of crumple at his words.

“I thought—it was—I thought you’d _died_ , angel,” Crowley spits out and it’s fierce and sharp and biting and so very painful for Aziraphale to witness than he can’t help but do the one thing he has never allowed himself to do before. He pulls Crowley into a hug and offers him _comfort_. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Never,” Aziraphale says and it’s a promise. “Never, my dear.”

Crowley buries his head into Aziraphale’s shoulder, face pressed against the soft skin of the angel’s neck and the well-loved material of his coat and vest. There is something Crowley has never done—not since the Fall—and Aziraphale knows that the demon has never wished to do so in front of him, but Crowley cries. A few sobs, some tears, and Aziraphale holds him tighter, his wings unfurling to curl around Crowley and embrace him in all the love Aziraphale is capable of feeling.

He wills it to seep into Crowley’s being, down through the layers of human flesh and bone, deeper into the core of Crowley’s being. Aziraphale pushes and pushes until it fills the cracks and seals the wounds that are still there from the Fall when all that Divine Love was ripped out and he was left empty. Aziraphale takes that empty space and he fills it with himself because he loves Crowley in ways no human can comprehend and he feels the love Crowley has for him in the way the demon clings to him, body pressing closer and closer, the core of Crowley burning a fiery red umber that pulses with every ounce of celestial love Aziraphale gives it.

“You built the bookshop for me,” Crowley murmurs into Aziraphale’s shoulder, voice muffled by material. “You made this place for me and I don’t read often but… but you knew I craved knowledge, know I do, and you—you literally built a nest and I didn’t even realise until it was _gone_.”

The demon lifts his head from Aziraphale’s shoulder and his eyes are bright with tears that seem to refuse to fall. “You were gone too but then you were back and it was better but—Adam fixed it, he fixed everything, but it’s not the same. You…” Crowley trails off. “You’ve made it more because you saw my flat and the art, didn’t you?”

Aziraphale bites his lip. “Yes,” he admits and Crowley smiles. It’s a wide smile, so rare and so very precious that Aziraphale feels the tension and fear that had been building as Crowley spoke fizzle out at the sight of that smile. “It was what was missing.”

Crowley nods. “I—yeah—yeah.”

Aziraphale heaves out a breath. “Good,” he says, blinking rapidly. “That’s good—I was worried—concerned I’d gotten it wrong, you see? And—well—that would have—” he starts to ramble again but Crowley—dear, dear Crowley—cuts him off.

“I know angel,” the demon says and he understands Aziraphale. “You said you had wine for us, earlier,” he adds, changing the subject suddenly but there’s still that look in his eyes and Aziraphale can still feel that crashing hungry umber fire that is Crowley pulling at him. “Want to celebrate?”

“We’ve already celebrated averting Armageddon,” Aziraphale says, just to be obtuse and make Crowley roll his eyes. “But yes, celebrating this—that’s a good idea, I think.”

“Good.” Crowley presses his forehead against Aziraphale’s suddenly before he releases his hold on the angel’s shoulders. He saunters off toward the sofa with the throws that Aziraphale has collected over the years for obvious reasons. “We have a lot to celebrate now.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale agrees, smiling widely and brightly, eyes shining with joy and love and all those other feelings he tried not to let rule him when he was at the behest of heaven. “Yes we do. New beginnings and all that.”

Crowley gives him a smirk. “New beginnings,” he agrees.

The wine is rich and heady and perfectly suited to the mood for them both as they enjoy each other’s company in the nest Aziraphale has spent two hundred years crafting. If Aziraphale had been made a bird and not an angel, perhaps he would have been a [white-browed sparrow-weaver](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Plocepasser_mahali_-Baringo_Lake%2C_Kenya_-male-8.jpg/800px-Plocepasser_mahali_-Baringo_Lake%2C_Kenya_-male-8.jpg). It’s a cute little bird with simple colours of brown or beige and white—quite like Aziraphale’s own colours—that crafts, as most birds do, a nest in order to attract a mate. Some of the nests that birds make are simple, others are very elaborate. Aziraphale has created a most elaborate nest with his bookshop and he embraces all that it represents and means. Heaven and hell can come for them—he knows they will—but the bookshop is a place of safety and love and refuge and Aziraphale will allow Nothing to change that now that Crowley has accepted.

For a bird can be vicious when fighting for its mate.

Just look at magpies.

**Author's Note:**

> So I had a lot of fun doing research for this on absinthe, nesting birds, snake courtship, historical individuals and other things. It was wild.
> 
> Comments and kudos, as always, sustain me :)


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